FSU's Chris Thompson in familiar territory with back injury

Season-ending injury hasn't slowed Thompson's spirits

October 19, 2011|By Coley Harvey, Orlando Sentinel

TALLAHASSEE -- During their junior year of high school, while off on a trip to a combine in Texas, current Florida State players Chris Thompson and Jacobbi McDaniel were involved in a bad car accident.

Neither player left the wreck with injuries that placed their budding football careers in jeopardy, but they were forced to go through one emotional, traumatic experience together.

Now they're set to get through another one.

In the span of a week, the former Madison County High teammates have succumbed to their respective season-ending injuries at FSU. A broken vertebrae in Thompson's back suffered during an awkward hit two weeks ago at Wake Forest has the tailback shelved the remainder of the season.

Last week at Duke, McDaniel dislocated his right ankle and broke the fibula in that same leg on the opening drive of the game. His season, too, has come to an end. Since Thompson had his injury first, he feels obligated to helping McDaniel through what could be a rough period for both players.

"I’m feeling real good and just trying to stay positive of my situation, but I know how he is because I’ve been around him for a while," Thompson said. "It could possibly have an affect on him. I’m just going to try to talk to him and just be in his head. But being in that rehab and having to do rehab together, we’re already close, but we’ll be even closer together."

Wednesday afternoon, Thompson spoke to reporters for the first time since the back injury left him forced to be carried off of BB&T Field and transported to a hospital in Winston-Salem.

"At first, I was scared, but I felt all the feeling in my legs and everything like that. I knew it wasn’t going to be anything that would affect me for life," Thompson said.

But when news moments after the game began trickling around the team that the starting tailback had a serious back injury involving broken bones, some were worried they wouldn't see him walk again in the near future.

Two days later, however, on that Monday morning, wearing a back brace that only leaves his body when he sleeps, Thompson walked into the Seminoles' team meeting room "like Jesus," fullback Lonnie Pryor said.

"He had a little halo over him," Pryor said.

While his teammates were applauding Thompson for making what they felt was a miraculous return, the junior running back said he was just glad to be around familiar company.

"Being around the guys, that’s just one thing that really keeps my spirits up," Thompson said. "I failed at doing that in the spring and it affected me a little bit."

This is the second time in recent months that Thompson has had a back injury. He missed nearly all of FSU's spring practices dealing with the effects of a back injury first suffered at the end of last season. In the spring, complications from the earlier injury flared up, forcing the Seminoles to shelve him.

It turns out, though, that his back woes may go back even further.

While getting examined two weeks ago for his most recent back problems, Thompson said doctors found a fracture in one of his vertebrae that they believed was preexisting. Most likely, it was from the car accident with McDaniel several years ago, he said.

Last week, one of the doctors currently treating Thompson told the Sentinel that he believed one of Thompson's fractured vertebrae originally was suffered in the accident. That means he likely only broke one vertebrae in the Wake Forest game instead of the two as was originally believed.

In addition to being back out at practices and going through meetings with teammates, Thompson said there has been one small gift from an unlikely source that has really carried him through the ordeal.

In the days after Thompson's injury, Ethan Fisher, FSU coach Jimbo Fisher's 6-year-old son, gave one of his favorite toy cars to his father to pass along to the injured ballplayer.

"That really just picked me up more than anything else," Thompson said, his voice quaking. "Just to see the situation that they’re dealing with with Ethan, and I’m sure he may not know exactly what’s going on with him, but it meant a lot to me."

Ethan Fisher has been diagnosed with the rare blood disorder known as Fanconi anemia. While he shows few signs of ill effects now, Ethan will be in need of a bone marrow transplant in the coming years.

In response to Ethan's diagnosis, the Fisher family has set up the Kidz1stFund, the fundraising wing of their Onakwest For a Cure organization. Both groups have been established to help raise awareness and resources for the rare disorder.

"He's a special young man, as all these guys are," Jimbo Fisher said of Thompson and his other players. "We look at them as our family. And if that was your son laying there ... Ethan wanted to make sure he had that, because he knew that when he was sick things like that made him feel good. He wanted Chris to feel good. That's the part of coaching that I enjoy the most.